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Frost wipes out wine grape crops

Riesling vines at Murrumbateman, on the southern tablelands of New South Wales have been ruined by frost.

Lucy Barbour

Frost has wiped out wine grape crops at Murrumbateman, on the southern tablelands of New South Wales, near Canberra.

Some growers have reported losses of 50 to 100 per cent in low-lying areas, while others say their vines have survived unscathed.

Last week's frosts followed one of the earliest bud bursts in decades for the region.

Winemaker, Tim Kirk, from Clonakilla vineyard says overall he's lost 60 to 70 per cent of his fruit.

"There's no doubt that we're feeling a little bit glum," he said.

"You know, people work so hard. We've got a whole team of staff here who are working in the vineyard through all sorts of weather conditions and to see all of that work kind of reduced to wilting, brown shoots after two hours of sub-zero temperatures, it has an impact on you, it's quite depressing."

The frosted shoots are now black and the leaves crumple when scrunched together.

"That's not a sound you want to hear at this time of year," Tim explains.

"You can see there, there's a tiny little bud, which will shoot again, and within a month you'll have another beautiful green shoot coming out but there'll be much less fruit on a shoot that comes from a secondary bud, if any at all."

The quantity of grapes produced in the district will take a dive this year, and it'll cost the local industry millions of dollars.

"Just on my front block, which is really one of our very very favourite blocks for shiraz viognier, it just produces the most amazing fruit, we've lost 70 per cent there," he said.

"And for that block alone, you're looking at well over a million dollars worth of shiraz viognier."

Winemaker Ken Helm has lost two of his vineyards to frost damage, but he's confident there'll still be a decent crop this year.

"One of the really nice things is that we've been contacted from wine makers around Australia and particularly in South Australia," he said.

"I've had offers of fruit being shipped across to help me out if we don't get any fruit this year, which is a very nice gesture that the wine industry pulls together in times of adversity."

Mr Kirk says he's already thinking about ways to prevent the frost damage from occurring again

"There are other systems you can use which actually spray water through the vineyard," he said.

"The freezing on the buds stops them going below zero, but you need a huge body of water and massive pumps to be able to get it out over the whole vineyard quickly, so there are lots of logistical issues with setting something like that up.

He's also investigated installing fans for the vines but says the area is too built-up and the noise could cause concern.

The only answer at this stage is planting vines at a higher altitude.

"After the big frost that affected the 2007 vintage, we did plant a couple more vineyards up on the higher ground we have here at Clonakilla, and they did survive, so that was in retrospect a very wise decision."

The early bud burst this year had made growers nervous about the potential for frost damage but Tim Kirk says it wasn't all to blame.

"My experience is that October's actually been pretty cool," he said.

"If you have a frost on the 18th October, you're always going to get hammered so you can't really explain early budburst or climate change for this particular example.

"But what's interesting to me, as someone who's observed the seasons here at Clonakilla for 42 years now, is the variability of the seasons. The fact that September was so warm and now that October seems to be quite cool.

He says growers in the region are trying to stay positive.

"We will get a vintage this year, it's just going to be smaller than we like and there's no reason why the quality shouldn't be extremely high.